The mating link rapped against the blood barrier. It alerted me to the tightening of Max’s hand on my wrist. While we were physically connected, an errant thought floated through to me. With the Reserve about to make the ultimate sacrifice, Max knew he couldn’t save them all. Now his intention tunnelled. He would save me even if he died trying. I knew he had every intention of busting down the ward around the Reserve while he still had the element of surprise. Maybe there was shame in leaving his pack undefended, but he didn’t care. All of his concern, all of his fear, all of his soul was focused on me.
How could I give him any less?
When his hand tightened once again and I felt his muscles contract, I drew a circle around myself and held firm. I snatched my hand back and stepped to the side to create some distance between us. His furious eyes lashed at me, but I cast it aside.
Agatha and I raised our hands at the same time. She drew a circle of purple light. I drew one of pink laced with red. Her eyes narrowed. Mine closed. Reaching into my pocket, I crushed the vial of Lex’s blood and felt the glass slice into my hand. The blood alchemy whipped out and grabbed hold of Lex’s blood.
Agatha’s choking laugh filled at the air. “Kill them!”
The malachim drifted forwards. I sank down to the ground and drew the blood circle. This time when they touched it, I shoved back at them with alchemy. It brushed up against the circle of Agatha’s magic. I gritted my teeth hard. Channelling the blood of the civilian shifters, and boosted by Lex’s power, I scraped away at her circle until it broke apart in my hands. The moment the malachim hit the circle, it exploded in a cascade of such blistering midnight blue that for a moment, night turned into day. A phantom hand reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until I felt my blood turning cold.
“Sophie!” Max screamed.
“Go!” I screamed back. His eyes clouded with gold. “Max!”
The pure anguish in my voice forced him to take off running. He ploughed through the barrier of demons like they weren’t even there and launched himself at the wards. I didn’t see anything else as Agatha sailed over the top of me. The demons went into a frenzy. They came at us again.
The shifters dispensed with all order. Guards, parents, and children all moved to defend their home for the last time.
Inside me, something made a loud creaking noise. Warm arms dragged me from the middle of the fight to sit me inside the embrace of a bear. Durin’s white eyes looked down at me as I died. Max pounded against the wards. Thunder cracked in the air as a line of mauve appeared like a fissure opening up in the ground during a volcano eruption.
Sensing that her ward was about to fail, Agatha gave up her hold on the malachim to focus on strengthening it.
Inside, I latched on to the last tether of my soul. It was so thin I could barely feel it throbbing. It slipped through my magical fingers. A figure steeped in shadow materialised in the field before my eyes. That voice that whispered insidious things filled my mind.
Sophie, the thing urged. Come to me.
The browned portion of my soul heeded his command. It sailed towards him, stretching the tether so tight I felt myself being pulled physically closer. Durin’s arms gripped my shoulders. My heartbeat began to slow.
The mating link became riotous inside the blood barrier. I thanked the heavens that blood magic stuck. Even after death.
Sophie. Another spirit emerged beside the demon. One I’d only ever known through stigma and the Book of Beasts. A promise is a promise, my great-grandfather thought to me. You belong to Apollyon.
A hot red pain sliced through every nerve in my body as the last thread of my soul began to fray. I heard myself screaming but my mind no longer registered emotions. The arms around me grew so tight my bones groaned.
Perversely, it was the kitchen magic that reached out at the last minute as the thread of my soul began to degrade. It turned from the pure pink to a discoloured brown. Screams rent the air around me as malachim tore into the shifters. Their dying groans filled my ears. Edward’s tiny wail brought me back to the present. I watched, deadened, as Cheyenne was ripped from his grasp by a malachim. The thing sank its claws into her gut. Her scream was cut off short as it exposed her stomach, and she died with her blood splattered all over her son.
Out of my mind with terror and grief, I sank my hand into Durin’s fur. The thing that looked back at me from his face was not a bear.
“Give me your strength,” I pleaded. “Give it to me and you can have my soul!”
It wasn’t even a contest. Durin was the strongest of the shifters, for now, but I was human. My soul was worth vastly more.
Truthfully, I didn’t even know what I was saying. Right then I would have made a deal with Lucifer himself to spare the Reserve. In that moment, I understood exactly why Lex had done it.
No! Apollyon screamed. He reared up and raised his arms. But when he tried to grab hold of my soul, he was rebuffed by a glowing white light.
The sound that came from the demon prince’s mouth was steeped in vehemence. Ancient and undying. It promised retribution. He disappeared from my sight, but in my mind, I saw him standing beside that Abyss. A black-eyed Kai was with him.
Enjoy your moment of reprieve, Apollyon promised. It will be your last.
My attention was ripped back to
